Marital Comfort
by terrys.chocklit.orange
Summary: Ivy helps Jimmy forget about troubles at work. Sequel to Married Life and The Sweetest Thing. AU, unless Jimmy comes to his senses! Mostly-PWP.


Ivy wished, sometimes, that she was a lady.

Not a grand lady, particularly. She wasn't interested in a massive mansion with dozens of servants. From what she heard—and she did hear things, and understand them, although some would have been surprised to learn it—that sort of life was on its way out anyway. _But I wouldn't mind a lady's bathtub_, she thought, struggling to pull the iron tub in front of the fire. _And a maid to help fill it_. As it was, by the time Ivy had boiled enough kettles to fill the bath, the water had grown tepid again. She climbed in regardless, washing herself as quickly as she could before it grew any colder.

As she rinsed off her hair, she heard the front door open, and felt the whoosh of cold air it brought with it. Jimmy slammed the door behind him and, with that single gesture, Ivy knew his day had not gone as well as hoped.

"I'm here," she called. A moment later, Jimmy stomped in, his beautiful face marred by a scowl. "What's wrong?"

"Bloody Lord Berrigan, that's what. He 'thinks I could benefit from more experience.'"

"So he's not taking you on as a permanent valet." Ivy couldn't say she was all that disappointed. She didn't particularly want to move away from Downton. And, if she was honest with herself, as she would never be with her husband, she hadn't really expected Jimmy to get the job. He _wasn't_ experienced, and he didn't have the right attitude to be a valet.

"No. And do you know what Carson had to say about it?" Jimmy flung himself down on the threadbare sofa behind the bathtub. He didn't wait for a reply. "'I agree completely, my Lord.' And he gave me that look. You know the one he has. Like I was something he found on the bottom of his shoe after a walk in a pasture."

Ivy smiled. "It's not all bad, love."

"Isn't it?" Jimmy snorted. "It means we're stuck here after all." He rubbed his face. "Maybe we should move into the city. I'm sure I could pick up something better there." That was Jimmy's usual response to crisis, a solution brought out when he was most down. They'd never done it. They never would. Ivy knew Jimmy better than anybody, better than he knew himself. And she knew that despite all his talk, Jimmy was not the sort of man to take a risk like that. She wouldn't have married him if he was.

"Never mind, darling." If Ivy knew her husband, then she also knew how to cheer him up. She stood and faced him, letting the water drip off her into the bath. The immediate cold brought goosebumps to her skin and raised her nipples in hard peaks, but she ignored it, for his sake. It worked, at least partially. Jimmy looked her up and down, the scowl easing a little. At one time, his frank interest would have caused Ivy to blush, but now she was gratified by it, pleased that she could still capture his attention so fully after months of marriage. "Pass me a towel, would you?"

Without standing, he took Ivy's neatly folded towel from the floor and handed it over. She dried her hair first, reaching up and turning in a way she knew best showed off her breasts. Then she wrapped the towel around her body and stepped out, onto the freezing wooden floor. She dried herself off and dropped the towel again, in front of Jimmy. "Ivy..." he began, but she shook her head.

"Let me cheer you up, love." She knelt on the towel and kissed him.

It was tantalizing, and a little shocking, to feel the rough fabric of Jimmy's temporary-valet suit against her bare skin. She leaned in close between his legs, pressing her body against his, kissing him gently on the cheek and then on the mouth. When he prodded her lips with his tongue, she parted them, just a little, and allowed him inside. Jimmy opened wider and she drew back with a smile, running her hands along his thighs. "Ivy," he said again. His voice was different this time, already thickened with lust, and a familiar yearning began to unfold inside Ivy, as well, heating her skin despite the chill in the room.

Leaning up, she took his jacket off his shoulders. As she slipped her hands beneath his braces, Jimmy reached out to cup her face. She kissed one finger then allowed him to slide it into her mouth, sucking it and laving it with her tongue. Jimmy's eyes grew dark. She pushed down his braces and his trousers, leaving them pooled around his ankles. His prick was half-hard already. She could see it through his drawers. Rather than attend to it immediately, Ivy stroked his bare thighs instead, tracing patterns with her fingernails. Jimmy groaned. Reaching out, he took one of her breasts in hand, squeezing the flesh and tweaking the nipple with a roughness that bordered on painful. The sensation went immediately to Ivy's most secret places, setting them tingling without so much as a direct touch. She bit her lip and, concentrating on her husband, slipped her hands beneath his shirt, sliding them up and passing over Jimmy's own nipples. His prick twitched. With a smile, Ivy fondled her way down again, until she reached Jimmy's drawers. "Lift your hips," she said, but he was already doing so. She manoeuvred the cloth over Jimmy's prick, rock-hard and straining now, and pushed them out of the way. She bent her head and placed a delicate kiss on the head of the prick.

Before her marriage, Ivy had harboured no great expectations about sex. Her mother and her elder sister had provided her with a bald and very incomplete summary of what she might be expected to do "in the bedroom", but they'd made it sound like a chore, like one of the thousand and one tasks a working-class married woman had to contend with on a daily basis. They hadn't mentioned the joy, the sheer ecstasy that could be derived not only from receiving pleasure from one's husband, but from offering it to him. _Perhaps they've never experienced it_, Ivy thought, after one particularly enjoyable night with Jimmy, which had left her quivering inside and out. If that was the case, then she felt sorry for them. A few short months of it, and Ivy didn't know what she would do without it.

Ivy slid back Jimmy's foreskin and kissed him again, this time letting her tongue slip out and press against the slit. He had a spicy taste to him, quite different to anything else. She didn't like it, exactly, but it was a part of Jimmy, and as such, she accepted and enjoyed it. She reached back, rolling his balls gently in one hand. With the other, she steadied his prick and moved her head down, taking it inch by inch into her mouth.

This wasn't an easy task, but she was improving. She could tell by the way Jimmy let out a moan and a string of very ungentlemanly words, words which might have shocked her in her past, unmarried, life. She bobbed her head, sliding her lips up and down the length of Jimmy's shaft. Jimmy's hands came around the back of her head, clinging tightly but not pulling her hair. He was always careful with her in these circumstances. She could feel the vibrations in his body. She knew how hard he was working to keep from thrusting into her mouth. Smiling to herself, she pressed her tongue once again to the head of his prick, lapping up the leaking liquid, and pulled off.

"Ivy!" The groan was midway between an endearment and a curse.

"It's all right, love," she said, and climbed up to straddle Jimmy's lap.

The warm water of the bath had relaxed her muscles and he slid in easily, without more preamble, their groins lying flush against each other. Ivy gasped, breathless at the sensation of being so suddenly filled to the brim. Jimmy put his arms around her, tightly, crushing her against him. Her breasts rubbed against his shirt as he thrust upwards, again and again, his body surrounding her and his mouth on her neck. "Ah," Ivy sighed. Jimmy's mouth moved down, sucking a love bite into her collarbone. She held on, her hands gripping the shirt so tightly, she knew she would have a job getting the wrinkles out later. Jimmy pushed on, harder and harder. Ivy's pleasure spiralled upwards along with his. She had nearly reached her climax when Jimmy bit down, hard, and spent inside of her.

He collapsed almost immediately, lying with his eyes shut and his head against the back of the sofa. Ivy smiled. How could she not be pleased with that result? Still, her body yearned for more. She reached down, ready to attend to her own needs, when Jimmy's eyes opened.

"Come here." Pants and trousers still around his ankles, he moved onto the floor, the towel a hastily constructed pillow beneath his head. He lay on his back and pulled at Ivy until she was above him, her knees on either side of his head and her pussy over his face.

"Jimmy, I don't think..."

"It's fine," he said, roughly, grabbing her hips and lowering her onto him.

She sensation was incredible. Ivy had received these intimate kisses before, but this was beyond anything she'd ever felt. She cried out despite herself as Jimmy's wet tongue caressed her sensitised pussy, swiping over the lips then plunging inside. She surged forward. She couldn't help herself. Jimmy didn't complain but grabbed her backside, urging her on. She bore down, her thighs shaking as Jimmy went in deeper yet, lapping eagerly. His right hand disappeared from her backside. Jimmy's tongue withdrew and he shifted, pursing his lips around that bulb of flesh Ivy couldn't name, but appreciated greatly. Ivy panted, teetering on the precipice. The hand came back, slick with bath water or semen or something. She didn't care what. Jimmy sucked at her roughly. Ivy's vision blurred. He slid the finger into the cleft of her backside, rubbing back and forth, then breached her, the finger pushign into her hole. Her untouched muscles clenched hard at this unexpected intrusion. Jimmy nipped her pussy and pushed his finger further inside. The sensation was unmanageable. Ivy came with a scream, her legs tightening around Jimmy until she was sure she must have hurt him.

"Sorry," she murmured, climbing off him as soon as she could move her muscles. She felt weak, breathless, and she sat on the floor, leaning against the sofa with a dazed, dizzy sensation.

Jimmy didn't answer. Instead, he came to kiss her, first on the lips, then on the bruise she could feel forming on her collarbone, then on the breast, sucking her nipple until it raised up again. She could scarcely believe it, but as Jimmy reached down, her body responded to him. One finger on his left hand circled her centre of pleasure, whispering over it, while two others slid inside her, probing until they were buried to the hilt. He pressed against her flesh, scratching lightly with his nail, and crooked the fingers inside of her. He touched his tongue to the tip of her nipple. Alight with passion, and love, and many other feelings she could scarcely name, Ivy pulled him close, her hands in his hair, and came again, her thighs clamping shut around his hand.

A long moment passed. Ivy lay, cradled in her husband's arms, enveloped in satisfaction until he said, "This isn't doing my clothes any good at all."

Ivy smiled and sat up, drowsy. There was a soreness within her which she expected would probably get worse the next day, but she didn't mind. _A souvenir_, she thought, and this evening was worth remembering.

"Shall we go to bed, then?" she suggested. She looked over at Jimmy. His hair was disarranged and his shirt, crumpled almost beyond recognition, hung from his body. His pants and trousers were still around his ankles, constricting him like a snake. She couldn't help but laugh. Jimmy smiled back.

"I don't know. I rather fancied a bath after that." He looked pointedly at the bathtub, full of no-doubt ice cold water by now. Ivy smiled.

"I'll put the kettle on," she said and went into the kitchen. _Sod being a lady, _she thought, as she tied an apron over her nude body. _I'll take this any day_.


End file.
